


Sinews In Her Teeth

by Coyote Grins (Inksinger)



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: F/F, F/M, Lupercalia, M/M, Multi, Psychic Bond, Psychic Wolves, Psychic Wolves For Lupercalia, Wolves Made Them Do It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-12 11:11:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13546149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inksinger/pseuds/Coyote%20Grins
Summary: There are no wolves in Quel'Thalas.





	1. Chapter 1

There are no wolves in Quel'Thalas.

Everyone knows this - from kings to scholars, from explorers to peasants. The farthest north any wolf has ever been spotted in the last decade has been the southern border of Lordaeron - or Lordaeron itself, if one is willing to count the undead wretches who prowl the land in a ceaseless quest to sate the gnawing emptiness that comes of having no soul left to speak of.

There are no wolves in Quel'Thalas - and the speculation as to why that should be runs the gamut from environmental factors to the idea that the blood elves simply find the beasts unlovely, and therefore drive them from their borders or slaughter them outright whenever they are spotted.

Diplomats to the kingdom will, on occasion, ask their elven hosts about this.

“There are no wolves in Quel'Thalas.” The Regent Lord is adamant, if resigned to the unending curiosity of those who ask.

The Grand Magister has no such patience, and openly derides the poor fools who dare to ask in his hearing. “Surely,” he snaps, “there are more pressing matters to discuss than this region's fauna.”

Occasionally, someone will notice and ask the Ranger General about the wolf fur lining his cloak and boots and gloves. Surely he did not leave the kingdom to gather a wolf hide when Quel'Thalas is bursting with soft-furred lynxes…?

He smiles, and laughs gently, and pats the shoulder of those who ask. He does not answer, but the message is clear.

_There are no wolves in Quel'Thalas._

 

And because there are no wolves in Quel'Thalas, neither is there any gathering of rangers who live all but entirely away from civilization of any sort - not strictly shunned but neither happily welcomed to walk the streets of any but the smallest villages. Such rangers would only face such poor regard if they treated with creatures capable of influencing their elven handlers.

The notion is absurd. No creatures are capable of such a thing. Any stories claiming otherwise are simply that: stories, concocted for the amusement (and control, born of the fear of bogeys) of small children who know no better.

Even some children do not believe the tales. How could they, when the tales are so absurd? Young elves taken from loving families by wild, savage-seeming rangers who almost appear to struggle with things as simple as speech and proper table manners; elven children raised among these savages and taught to be savage themselves; elven children with lovely manners and pretty shoes and petticoats who become bonded to _wolves…_ Even the wolves themselves, as mighty as wargs and yet as lovely and graceful as the springpaw lynxes, boggle the minds of the more astute children. Such creatures cannot possibly exist.

Of course, on occasion an outsider will come to their fair kingdom with a wolf or warg in tow - or even, sometimes, several. And, yes, once or twice the beasts were regal specimens among their kind.

But there is no chance that these creatures escape into the Eversong, much less that they breed and then abandon their litters when their masters leave again. The laws protecting the indigenous wildlife of Quel'Thalas are strict and rigidly enforced. The Farstriders would never tolerate the presence of an invasive species - not without more paperwork and proof of training than might be believed, were it explained in full.

All the same, the tales of savage rangers and their lovely wolf-beasts persist, as all bogey stories ever have and ever will, because even if they are not effective in controlling wild children they are still marvellous entertainment for elves of any age.

And so, “Do not misbehave,” the mothers of Quel'Thalas still say, “or the wolf-lords will mistake you for one of their cubs and take you away!”

Utter nonsense, surely.

 

Aliala smiles as a child in the marketplace notices her wolfskin pouch and comes to ask her - with impeccable manners, of course - if she killed the beast it came from.

“Now,” she says, handing the boy one of the cookies she's just purchased, “how could I have killed a wolf? I’ve never left our lovely kingdom - and everyone knows there are no wolves in Quel'Thalas!”

“But sometimes outsiders bring wolves into the kingdom,” the boy says, though he accepts the cookie all the same. “Wargs, as well.”

“And they leave with them in tow,” Aliala reminds him. She wraps her remaining cookies in a bit of paper offered by the baker, then pockets the little package in the leather pouch at her hip. “And everyone knows the laws about breeding foreign beasts within our borders. The Farstriders would never allow an invasive species to run amok because some orcish hunter couldn't keep his wargs apart!”

The boy flushes and smiles sheepishly, then takes a bite of his cookie.

“But wherever did you get a wolfskin coin pouch?” he asks when he's finished his bite and wiped the crumbs from his mouth. “It is real, isn't it? It looks real.”

Aliala smiles again and giggles sweetly.

“That would be telling,” she tells the boy, and flits away to disappear into the market crowd.


	2. Chapter 2

Because there are no wolves in Quel'Thalas, Aliala has no trouble bringing her bondmate along when she visits the capital. The guards set to watch the last major city they must pass through eye them only a moment longer than they eyed the goblins who have just gone prancing ahead of the duo, cackling and waving brightly colored paper ribbons about in drunken merriment. After that raucous display, a single elvish ranger and her curiously large wolf companion are a trifling matter, and both are admitted with a wordless sort of relief.

 _Foolish._ The greatwolf “speaks” in the same nebulous, barely-there sort of thought-voice that Aliala does all of her thinking with. The difference is that Steel has a much deeper thought-voice, thinks more slowly, and laces every word with unrestrained wildness. Aliala reaches up and laces a hand into the soft, silvery fur of his mane like a child seeking comfort in her mother's robes.

 _It is easier,_ she tells him, fighting down a wicked grin as a nearby magister sees her clinging to Steel and visibly scoffs. _Don't you want to be here?_

 _Ha._ But the rumble in the greatwolf’s chest is the one that is his laughter. He does not speak again as they weave through the city and find themselves back upon the northward road.

So it goes for the ten other rangers who come after Aliala, traveling one or two at a time with their own massive wolves in tow. They hardly stand out at all in the midst of so many Horde allies gallivanting about the kingdom with sundry contraptions and creatures from all across Azeroth and beyond.

That's rather the entire point, after all.

Were it any other holiday, they would not travel the roads of Quel'Thalas in so large a pack - or at all, truly, without urgent news for the Ranger General. The rangers of the Stillgrove Retreat are nearly a people all their own, with customs and celebrations for holidays the other races do not recognize - and, for those they _do_ celebrate with the rest of the world, again the celebrations are tailored to suit their unique existence, hidden away from nearly all the rest of the world. They do not need or care much for the pomp and circumstance of others, save as curiosities to study when the opportunity arises, if they are so inclined.

But this holiday - the Feast of Love's Fools - this is the one holiday for which they make such exception as to compete for the right to journey to the capital and celebrate at the side of the Ranger General, as his honored guests.

Aliala allows herself a flicker of pride. She and Steel are the first among the pack to come to the city because they were the ones who triumphed over all others during the challenges in the weeks before. The first champions always lead their brethren - and the Ranger General knows it.

The citizens of Silvermoon have not yet begun to celebrate in earnest by the time the verdant gardens that sprawl before the city's walls come into view. Those visiting may already be inebriated and rowdy, but the blood elves Aliala can see seem to have only just begun their drinking. Aliala sniffs, but can't yet detect the sweet aroma of aphrodisiacs among the overlying scent of bloodthistle and mana and mulled wine. One trio of ladies seem to grope each other absently as they walk towards the Shepherd's Gate, but otherwise the elves seem in full command yet of their senses.

Aliala has to chew back another toothy grin; she remembers the last Love's Fool she witnessed here. They won't stay so collected for long.

Aliala and Steel do not venture into the city itself; instead, they take a left at the last fork in the wide, milky-white cobblestone road, putting the city to their flanks as they continue onward. Their ultimate destination does indeed sit on grounds counted among the great swath of land attributed to the kingdom's capital, but it is not Silvermoon where Aliala and her pack will celebrate the festival. That would be risking far too much; their countrymen would see so many greatwolves arrive in all the same place and immediately realize the truth, and that simply cannot be.

Aliala - as all her brethren - prefers the secrecy and myth surrounding her pack and their bondmates. They were not created of the ragged, half-mad survivors of the Scourge onslaught to become a visible force; too many people knowing too much about the old kingdom's defenses had cost them nearly everything. If they are to protect their kin, the wolf-lords must be little more than elvish bogeymen - stories told to children and outsiders, each time with details that change or morph to suit the audience at hand.

Outside of the wolf-lords and the Ranger General who raised and now commands them, only the Regent Lord knows the truth, and even he does not know all the truth - at his own insistence.

In spite of her holiday cheer, Aliala feels herself deflate a little at the thought of their battle-scarred ruler. She has met Lor'themar Theron on a handful of occasions in the past, and finds him a strong, capable leader, worthy of respect and loyalty - but always, always she has seen hesitancy in him when he addresses her, or speaks to her or the Ranger General of the pack's movements.

It is not disdain for the wolf-lords that drives his careful speech and rigid self-regulation; Lor'themar Theron was a ranger, once, too, and Aliala has seen the way he carries himself and knows to her core that he has not forgotten what that means. The wild still bristles in his heart, and even if he has learned to fool all others into believing he is tame, Aliala senses that he has only grown patient - not soft. The eldest greatwolves are much the same, and Aliala has no doubt that the Regent Lord's jaws would snap together just as sharply as theirs if he were so provoked.

No, he does not look down on the pack, and neither, she thinks, does he fear them or their bondmates. But it _is_ fear that drives his unwillingness to learn more about them than he must, for he behaved much the same with the troll ambassadors Aliala was once forced to share her visit with. The Regent Lord is a wolf that has grown mighty, yet never forgotten what brought him harm as a cub.

Steel feels the sorrow tugging at her heart and bumps her with his massive shoulder.

 _It is a poor time to be grieving, little wolf._ His thought is as gentle as it can be - gentle in the way that autumn sunlight is gentle even as it burns away the frost of the night before. _We near the alpha. Think of the feast, and not of broken wolves who fight too hard._

Aliala straightens and looks ahead, drawing her gaze away from the surrounding woodland to focus instead upon the sprawling grounds ahead.

The borders of the vast estate are marked out with a low, deceptively plain fence. Smooth, white, stone posts support two rows of pale, stained wood, sanded down until their shape and texture resembles bolts of silk more than hard, densely-packed fiber.

There is no gate - the fence is low enough to hop over, and its wooden rails are spaced far enough apart for nearly any humanoid in decent health to slip through - but there are two guards patrolling near the gap through which the road passes, and they both move to intercept Aliala and Steel.

Aliala expected this, and is glad to see the people guarding the Ranger General are not lazy sots. She sees them both casually rest their hands upon the thin, wicked swords at their hips and is glad also that she has the token she knows will grant her entry onto the estate.

“The Ranger General expects us,” Aliala says, slowly reaching for her wolfskin pouch. From this - and while keeping both hands in plain sight for the guards - she draws her bondmark.

Every wolf-lord is given such a talisman upon the formation of a bond with their greatwolf: A flat, circular piece of crystal no larger than the palm of a child's hand, with the image of a wolf cub’s paw print carved into its face. Each bondmark is unique to the wolf-and-ranger represented, if not because of the crystal it is carved from (for there are currently three peridot talismans and four citrine), then because of the magic housed within and the motto that whispers in the mind of any who are permitted to handle it. Greatwolf cub and wolf-lordling alike give a tiny piece of themselves unto the bondmark during its creation, sealing their bond in a crystal that shatters only when the bond is severed by death itself.

Aliala hands her bondmark to the nearer of the two guards, who carries himself with an air of experience and duty his younger comrade does not quite seem to mirror. The guard reaches for the purple crystal with well-hidden trepidation, and holds it between his thumb- and fingertips as though afraid it might chew through his sturdy leather gloves. Even still, Aliala knows the bondmark will whisper to him - and hears the echo of it, when it does.

 _Small in stature I may be, but mightier than beast or king._ The bondmark’s voice is soft and many-faceted - a stage whisper that is Aliala-the-child and Aliala-the-wolf-lord, a murmuring that is Steel-the-cub and Steel-the-greatwolf-sire, all of them at once and none of them at all.

Aliala remembers whispering the words as she pricked a finger to bleed into the crystal. She remembers, too, seeing the tiny bundle of gray fur that had been Steel-the-cub press his paw against the still-hot disk, remembers the smell of singed skin and fur and the sound of his thought-voice echoing the motto before he pulled away. Neither of them had been very old; Aliala had been perhaps five or six, and only very recently introduced to the wolf-lords when the bond had sprung up between her and Steel, himself only newly weaned from his proud mother. Many outsiders would call the ritual a barbaric one for drawing blood and “forcing” burns upon such young creatures. The wolf-lords and their bondmates know far greater suffering than these, and happily accept the moment's pain in exchange for such a precious heirloom.

“As you say,” the guard says, and he drops the bondmark into Aliala’s open hand, wary eyes glued to Steel. “Do you require an escort?”

“Does the Ranger General require that his guests have one?” Aliala’s question is pert, but her tone is earnest. She stands now upon the alpha’s territory; she will abide by whatever laws he has set for this place.

The guards exchange an uncomfortable look; then the elder nods and beckons for Aliala and Steel to follow him as he turns and starts up the road. The younger guard makes an admirable attempt to hide his discomfort as the greatwolf passes by nearly close enough to brush against him.

Were it not for the faint hum of magic saturating the grounds, Aliala thinks it might be difficult for most outsiders to tell this land was owned at all, let alone cultivated and nurtured. Here and there a groundskeeper appears, walking among trees that have been allowed to grow where they will and tending to the native flora and fauna populating the estate. Aliala is fairly convinced the Ranger General simply built a fence around the perimeter of his land, then laid the many, many wards and alarm spells saturating the area as an afterthought.

The animals actually owned by the Ranger General - the hawkstriders he rides for formal matters, the dragonhawks he raises as messengers, spies, and hunting companions - are kept within enclosures, but even these are massive, sprawling sections of the estate grounds, set nearest to the building complex of the estate proper and carefully cultivated to mimic the most ideal environment for the creatures they house. Aliala wonders if the high, sturdy fences around the hawkstrider pen - or indeed the high magic ceiling shimmering faintly across the dragonhawk enclosure - are even necessary. Are the beasts unhappy enough to try to escape, or are such measures simply an added precaution?

The trio have only just come within sight of the estate’s central building - a mansion-sized lodge that seamlessly blends the sweeping, milky spires and walkways of civilized elvish society with the rich colors and easy defensibility of every single Farstrider outpost Aliala has ever seen - when Aliala sees the Ranger General himself step outside to wait for them at the wide patio outside the grand, double front doors.

Aliala grins - too widely, apparently, for the guard escorting her and Steel notices and stiffens slightly through the shoulders.

Halduron Brightwing is not accompanied by his greatwolf just at the moment, though Aliala doesn't doubt for a moment that the massive, grizzled sire is watching on from somewhere very nearby. Halduron may be a close friend of the Regent Lord, but he _earned_ his appointment to Ranger General by virtue of his skill and ability to rally and lead the Farstriders even in the days immediately following the Scourge onslaught, when the rangers had all but gone feral with grief and rage. So skilled a man would not have a clumsy, oafish wolf for a bondmate; nature and the fey gods who govern it are not so cruel.

A tiny shiver runs the length of Aliala’s spine as she and Steel are finally brought to the patio. This area is paved with stones that are not white, but rather the color of chai tea with cream: a muted, pinkish tan that nearly vanishes against the soil of Quel'Thalas. A few chaise lounges sit nearby, crafted from rich, gilded wood and cushioned in emerald velvet. They sit low to the ground, and beside each lounge is a round little table of matching height and wood.

It's a perfect smoking area, and another shiver hits Aliala’s core at the thought of the sort of blends she and the others might partake of while they stay here. Not that any of them will _need_ the added stimulant, of course…

“Aliala Softshadow.”

The Ranger General speaks her name slowly, as though in all his wildest dreams he never expected her to be the first champion for another decade or so at least, and Aliala swells just a little as she turns her attention back to her alpha.

He's _beautiful_ \- though of course, Aliala has thought him so since the very first time she met him. His fine, androgynous features are deceptively open; sharp eyes dance with some secret mirth, and full lips twist into an easy smile with steel hidden in its edges. His hair falls like molten sunlight about his broad shoulder; his scarred, callused hands rest almost idly upon his hips, and his feet are braced at shoulder width with such ease that anyone who knew him not as well as Aliala might not realize he is tightly wound even now.

Aliala knows the feeling. The golden-haired angel who saved her from the undead when she was a child newly orphaned has become a beloved teacher and commander, a source of strength and inspiration - but never quite a friend, and certainly never a potential bedmate until this moment.

Excitement coils through her as she salutes her Ranger General. Soon she will see him unclothed. Soon she may touch him as she has only ever dreamed of doing; soon she will see and know him, and he will see and touch and take and know her, and--

Halduron dismisses the forgotten guard with a gesture as he says to Aliala, “You are every bit as eager now as when you were a child.”

“Forgive me,” Aliala says - a reaction, spoken just an instant before she sees the humor in his eyes. But she _does_ see it, and waits another artful little second before glancing up through her lashes and softly adding, “Or don't… sir.”

There's blood and bone hiding in the grin Halduron gives her at that - a promise of carnage and carnal fury yet to come. He lays a hand on her shoulder and Aliala nearly comes undone right here.

Nearly.

“Come sit with me,” he offers, nodding towards the lounges. “Let Steel roam as he will for now; there's no danger we'll be discovered here.”

 _”Let.”_ Steel snorts, and both rangers hear him and laugh as the greatwolf turns and bounds away into the trees, gracing Aliala with the feel of swift movement and of wind combing through fur that isn't hers.

“We will wait for the rest out here,” Halduron says, leading Aliala to one of the lounges.

He sits, and before she can move to sit beside him he reaches out and drags her down across his lap by an arm. Heat flares through her body, but the instant she tries to snuggle against him Halduron grins and wraps both arms around her, pinning her in place and laughing softly when she huffs in frustration.

“Wait, little champion,” he tells her again. “You'll have your fun soon enough.”

Aliala groans and lays her head back against his shoulder as he laughs at her again. So this is the downside to being first champion: the _waiting._

Halduron's breath feathers across her skin as they wait; the heat of him turns her belly into a furnace. Left with no way to distract or relief herself of the growing tension gnawing at her bones, Aliala resigns herself to the long wait ahead… and then begins to plan how she will prove herself to her alpha with the setting of the sun tonight.


End file.
